Is Chicago an exception regarding female chefs?

I frequently hear that restaurant kitchens are dominated by males, that female chefs are few and far between, with the occasional exception of pastry chefs. Yet when I look around town, I see that some of our best and most acclaimed top chefs are female, including:

- Carrie Nahabedian of Naha and Brindille
- Iliana Regan of Elizabeth
- Stephanie Izard of Girl and the Goat and Little Goat Diner
- Heather Terhune of Sable
- Mindy Segal of Hot Chocolate
- Nicole Pederson of Found

Granted, they are nowhere near 50 percent of top chefs, but they're not exactly a rarity either. Hence my question. Does Chicago have more female top chefs than other big cities?

Don't forget my old friend Jill Barron @ Mana Food Bar. She has a much deserved Michelin Bib Gourmand award.

Zoe Schor at Ada St. is another Bib Gourmand winner.
Also, the kitchens of some of Chicago's best Asian restaurants are helmed by women, but since the websites tend to be very basic and not include fancy profiles of the restaurant's key players, these chefs are not as widely recognized as I think they should be.

Sarah Stegner, chef/owner of Prairie Grass Cafe, has 2 James Beard Awards.

I'm not sure if Heather Terhune belongs on this list, though. Other than having one of the most brutal seasons ever on Top Chef, is she really acclaimed?

=R=

The discussion is about whether we are an exception regarding how many female chefs we have. Not about which ones are or aren't "acclaimed", or which ones people do or don't like (for their food or their persona). Let's stick to the subject.

nsxtasy wrote:The discussion is about whether we are an exception regarding how many female chefs we have. Not about which ones are or aren't "acclaimed". Let's stick to the subject.

Acclaimed was your word, not mine. Check your opening post:

nsxtasy wrote:I frequently hear that restaurant kitchens are dominated by males, that female chefs are few and far between, with the occasional exception of pastry chefs. Yet when I look around town, I see that some of our best and most acclaimed top chefs are female, including:

=R=

nsxtasy wrote:Hence my question. Does Chicago have more female top chefs than other big cities?

Does "top" not mean "acclaimed"? In any case, this is a question that can't really be answered by naming chefs. You need actual data.

I couldn't resist.

EATON: I assure you, Dr. Jones. We have top men acclaimed chefs working on it right now.

JONES: Who?

EATON: Top men acclaimed chefs.

Darren72 wrote:Does "top" not mean "acclaimed"?

I meant it in the sense of the lead chef at any given restaurant. These are often, but not always, called the "executive chef". Within the kitchen, they are universally called "Chef".

This is LTH at its worst - when people attack words in posts, rather than talking about food.

And FWIW, I consider Heather Terhune to be one of our best chefs. But again, that's not the subject of this discussion. She's female and she's the chef in charge of a restaurant, like the others who have been mentioned. So maybe we can talk about whether Chicago is an exception in its female chefs, instead of nitpicking over semantics.

nsxtasy wrote:This is LTH at its worst - when people attack words in posts, rather than talking about food.

Kinda like you do over at Chowhound?

TomInSkokie wrote:

nsxtasy wrote:This is LTH at its worst - when people attack words in posts, rather than talking about food.

Kinda like you do over at Chowhound?

oh snap...!

With all due respect, the original poster posed an interesting question. After reading the responses, I was sorry I bothered with this thread.

Jonah

I really don't know if Chicago's an exception. Discussing it on this anecdotal level, it seems mostly a matter of perception. Do we really have a higher percentage of female chefs running kitchens than in other cities? I guess I'm not familiar enough with other cities to say for sure. Maybe it just feels that way. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe we're actually behind other cities. As Darren posted, real data are needed to say for sure.

Or are we just going to list female chefs who run kitchens in Chicago? That's completely fine but if so, how will we really know how we compare to other cities? Or is that not the question?

Sorry, confused.

=R=

If you look at the female chefs mentioned, a good percentage of them are also owners/investors in their respective restaurants. Those businesses also tend to be smaller entrepreneurial "boutique" establishments rather than larger corporate endeavors. It seems (again, anecdotally) that a woman is not as likely to be hired into a corporate executive chef position as her male counterparts. There certainly is no shortage of very talented women chefs, so I can only deduce that females are not perceived as having sufficient supervisory skills to be effective kitchen "bosses". I think that misconception is as prevalent in Chicago as it is elsewhere. Perhaps it is just easier in Chicago for a talented chef (male or female) to open their own restaurant.

I think a lot of cities have great female chefs, they just don't get a ton of media coverage. The Chicago food media isn't perfect, but at least female chefs here seem to get a fair amount of coverage.

I do think costs play a role. SF and NYC have a lot of great female chefs who I think get less press because they don't own their own restaurants or aren't executive chefs. If they were in Chicago, rent costs might allow them to start their own businesses more easily. As rent costs rise and other anti-business government practices become more of an issue here, I think we'll see more and more great diverse chefs coming out of smaller cities like Indianapolis and Cleveland.

Jonah wrote:With all due respect, the original poster posed an interesting question. After reading the responses, I was sorry I bothered with this thread.

Jonah

Yes, it was going great until post #5.

Roger Ramjet wrote:

Jonah wrote:With all due respect, the original poster posed an interesting question. After reading the responses, I was sorry I bothered with this thread.

Jonah

Yes, it was going great until post #5.

I'd say it screeched to a halt after #3.

Posts 16 and 17 are very informative, thanks for the analysis.

Personally, I care as much about the gender of the chef preparing my meal as I do about the gender of the server serving it. When they are at the top of their game, they make my life all the much better and I am thankful for it.

Davooda

nsxtasy wrote:

Darren72 wrote:Does "top" not mean "acclaimed"?

I meant it in the sense of the lead chef at any given restaurant. These are often, but not always, called the "executive chef". Within the kitchen, they are universally called "Chef".

This is LTH at its worst - when people attack words in posts, rather than talking about food.

And FWIW, I consider Heather Terhune to be one of our best chefs. But again, that's not the subject of this discussion. She's female and she's the chef in charge of a restaurant, like the others who have been mentioned. So maybe we can talk about whether Chicago is an exception in its female chefs, instead of nitpicking over semantics.

+1

This forum ain't what it used to be. There are many people that posted here before back in the day that I don't see posting anymore.

Reading someone's post carefully and replying to exactly what they've written in an honest, thoughtful manner? If that's LTH at its worst, I'll take it. IMO, that's way better than long threads on which people list their favorite "this or that" and don't even bother reading other members' posts.

My reply above was entirely respectful because I considered the OP's exact words (which, other than a few images, are all we really have here) and replied to them earnestly. The fact he and I disagree on Ms. Terhune's stature is a fundamental element of this forum. The fact that he's mad because I read his post literally is a major head-scratcher for me. We're in a message forum here. The accuracy of the words we use here matters. If that's too great a burden, maybe a platform that only allows for 140 characters at a time is a better fit.

=R=

So it appears that actual data on this subject isn't very easy to find. I tried to lookup a list of all the michelin star female chefs, etc, but scouring through google for a few pages of results on different search terms, I didn't come up with anything. Anyone know of a good resource where I can find out such information so we can discuss some hard data? On a side note, there are plenty of articles I found while searching that talk about how we need more women chefs, why we don't see as many women chefs, what it takes to be a top woman chef, the uniqueness a woman chef can bring to a kitchen, but no list of acclaimed female chefs. I just want to come to my own conclusions based on raw numbers, is that too much to ask?

ronnie_suburban wrote:Reading someone's post carefully and replying to exactly what they've written in an honest, thoughtful manner? If that's LTH at its worst, I'll take it. IMO, that's way better than long threads on which people list their favorite "this or that" and don't even bother reading other members' posts.

My reply above was entirely respectful because I considered the OP's exact words (which, other than a few images, are all we really have here) and replied to them earnestly. The fact he and I disagree on Ms. Terhune's stature is a fundamental element of this forum. The fact that he's mad because I read his post literally is a major head-scratcher for me. We're in a message forum here. The accuracy of the words we use here matters. If that's too great a burden, maybe a platform that only allows for 140 characters at a time is a better fit.

=R=

May I respectfully ask why you feel this way about Heather Terhune? You express your opinion about her without actually explaining why. Did you have a negative experience with her food? Is there something that didn't meet your expectations? I do realize you are much more culinarily experienced than I am since I come from the backwoods of Sterling, IL where hogs roam freely so I'd very much appreciate your opinion

I might be an exception, but I don't think men and women are so different that they really cook all that differently, my concern with gender balance is whether or not it's an indicator that sexism is keeping talented women out of top kitchens, as well as balance in media coverage, which tends to be biased towards the male "rockstar"-style chef.

I think Sable is good, I don't think it's truly a great restaurant though. The food is just not that interesting. Frankly, the menu is a bit outdated. It reads like a top ten of trendy dishes from 2000. I'd certainly still eat it though, it's just not very different from 100 other Chicago restaurants. A lot of people go there mainly for the cocktails.

Blown Z wrote:May I respectfully ask why you feel this way about Heather Terhune? You express your opinion about her without actually explaining why. Did you have a negative experience with her food? Is there something that didn't meet your expectations? I do realize you are much more culinarily experienced than I am since I come from the backwoods of Sterling, IL where hogs roam freely so I'd very much appreciate your opinion

This is no more than a matter of personal preference. I don't believe it's a matter of dining experience. nsxtasy is a very experienced diner and our opinions differ on this. On some other places/chefs we agree 100%. And so it goes.

I like the food at Sable a lot and I've written many positive things about it on their dedicated thread. But for me Sable's food squarely hits the level of really well executed bar food and doesn't really rise above it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's tasty, cleverly conceived and hits the spot. There's a time and a place for that. For me personally, it's Sable's bar, Mike Ryan's bar, that is truly the draw of the place.

Anyhoo, getting back to the post (my post) that sparked this meaningless little train wreck (that'd be post #4 for those keeping score at home ), I meant no disrespect at all. I just thought the word acclaimed was not necessarily an accurate descriptor in this particular context. Perhaps I was being too literal because if the word accomplished had been used instead, I would have agreed with it. If you haven't been to Sable, you shouldn't let my .02 dissuade you from trying it.

As for the question about Chicago and its female chefs, as others have posted above, other than just supposing and making a list, we really have no way of actually determining how our city compares to other cities. Honestly, I really never think about the gender of the person who cooks my food. Put something great in front of me and I'll eat it.

=R=